


Heartstrings

by MagicInHerMadness



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, F/M, Soul Bond, this is told from Rachel's POV btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 16:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9665591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicInHerMadness/pseuds/MagicInHerMadness
Summary: The rule was that everyone who died had a mission, a task to be completed before they reached The Upper World, the one the living called heaven. You learned your mission as you were crossing, and I was no exception. Being confined to my hospital bed left me with nothing but time to learn my task: righting my greatest wrong. I had to restore two people’s faith in real love, one of them the ex-husband I’d cheated on, and the other a brown-eyed girl whose lover I’d unwittingly taken when she needed him most.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a soulmate/soul bond AU so this was an adventure.

Even running, Ginny Baker was a vision. Raven curls bouncing like springs around a positively sunshiny face; wide brown eyes that sparkle for seemingly no other reason than their presence on such a magnificent face; a bump of a nose that begged for kisses; and a smile bright enough to put the sun to shame, outlined by full lips and bracketed by dimples sculpted lovingly by God himself. (Or whoever is in charge of the Upper World. I haven’t had the opportunity to explore just yet.) She trotted across the platform, her backpack bouncing, her clunky sandals shuffling as she hopped onto the train a few seconds before the doors hissed shut. I was proud of her for being on time for the train she was supposed to take but missed because she lived perpetually twenty minutes late (her editor would be thrilled too), but the shuffle of a second pair of feet—these perpetually late as well—deflated my mood. Mike Lawson had missed his train—and his opportunity—by a matter of seconds and a few sleepy commuters accidentally blocking his path. To his credit, he’d been chasing Ginny, a dropped doodle of hers in his hand, but her omnipresent headphones had blocked out his calls. I sighed, went to work crafting a Plan B.

The rule was that everyone who died had a mission, a task to be completed before they reached The Upper World, the one the living called heaven. You learned your mission as you were crossing, and I was no exception. Being confined to my hospital bed left me with nothing but time to learn my task: righting my greatest wrong. I had to restore two people’s faith in real love, one of them the ex-husband I’d cheated on, and the other a brown-eyed girl whose lover I’d unwittingly taken when she needed him most. Relatively speaking, it was an easy fix compared to the stories I’d heard of parents tasked with penance for destroying children, men who’d broken women for no other reason that opportunity and ability, those for whom cruelty had been far too easy. I simply had to create the right circumstances and hope. I learned quickly that the task was deceptively simple. Not only did they have to meet. They had to _believe_.

X

Mike’s face wore its usual frown as he walked into the little San Diego bar and sat at a back table beside his best friend Blip. Bypassing a greeting, he asked, “Why are we here?”

Blip gestured to the stage. “Ev brought me last week. You’ve _gotta_ hear this girl sing.”

“What girl?”

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer because the girl walked onto the stage. She wore dark jeans and a white tank top, cut just low enough for Mike to see a large scar in the center of her chest, and her hair hung in loose ringlets around her shoulders. He turned to Blip, eyes alight. “That’s her!”

“Her who?” Blip replied.

“The girl from the train. The one I was chasing.”

Blip cracked a grin, shook his head. Mike’s spirited recount of their almost meeting had made me laugh as well. “That story does not paint you in the best light.”

Mike shook his head. “Whatever. That’s _her_.”

“You should really let this go.”

“I can’t. There’s something… I’ve just gotta meet her, okay?”

“Whatever.” Blip shook his head, sipped his beer.

A slight Asian man followed her onto the stage, a guitar strapped to his chest as he carried two stools with him. He set them down and waited for the woman to sit before he set up their mics. He climbed onto the stool beside her and grinned at the woman who returned the gesture with a smile that made the wrinkles in Mike’s forehead dissipate as he took in the way it brought life to her beautiful face, dimples popping out.

“So tonight’s very special,” he said, grinning at the girl beside him again. Mike wondered if they were a couple, his frown returning. My former love had quite the jealous streak. “For one thing, it’s Taco Tuesday. For another…”

He looked at the woman until she blushed under his gaze and spoke. “Well since you’re putting me on the spot. Today makes it one year since I got my transplant, and I haven’t had any negative reactions. So, it’s looking like it’s a keeper!”

She laughed sweetly as the crowd cheered. The man gave her shoulder a punch and Mike reconsidered his assumption that they were a couple. “And she can drink again so I hope everyone’s ready to buy her a beer!”

The crowd cheered again and she shook her head. “Before Eliot gets us all wasted, let’s at least do one song.”

“ _Play that song/ The one that makes me go all night long/ The one that makes me think of you/ That’s all you gotta do!_ ” Eliot sang loudly in his mic, making the girl beside him laugh as she shook her head.

“This is why we can’t go to any places nicer than this,” she said as he began strumming his guitar. “ _Some people wish/ Some people dance/ Some never take a chance/ Some people steal…_ ”

Mike’s eyes widened as he sat up in his chair. I had had a similar reaction to her singing, the sound awaking me from a nap to peer into her tiny apartment where she sat on a couch, Eliot on the floor beside her, strumming his guitar.

“ _Just for the thrill/ And some drink to get their fill_ …” Eliot joined and Mike took the opportunity to catch his breath, looking down at his beer.

“ _But I love you_ …” Ginny finished.

Blip nudged him. “You okay?”

Mike looked up, remembered where he was, and nodded. He didn’t continue the conversation, instead turning back to the stage, watching the girl’s eyes fall closed as she swayed to Eliot’s strumming.

“ _Some people preach/ Some people write/ And some choose to stay quiet_ …” Eliot sang. “ _Some people teach/ Some people roam_ …”

“ _Some would rather be alone_ ,” Ginny joined, holding onto her mic stand. “ _But I love you/ Yeah!_ ”

They finished the song and she hopped off her stool, smiling at the thunderous applause, announced, “I’m gonna go get my first drink!”

She left the stage and I watched Mike to follow her to the bar. There’s debate as to how much influence we have on the completion of our tasks, and I wasn’t sure I believed we had any, but still I hoped as hard as I could.

“Can I get a hard lemonade?” she asked the bartender. Mike snorted and she turned her eyes on him. “What?”

“You can finally drink and that’s your choice?” he teased with a smile.

“So what should I drink?”

“Well I’m gonna have a Jack and Coke,” he replied.

She smiled then turned to the bartender. “Same for me.”

He mixed their drinks then set them on the bar. Mike handed him a twenty, told him to keep the change then picked up his glass, watching as she did the same. “Here’s to you.”

She smiled as she clinked their glasses. “I’m Ginny. Ginny Baker.”

“I’m Mike Lawson,” he replied, holding out their hands.

She sipped her drink, smiled. “You know I’ve never had Jack Daniels before.”

“Well what do you think?” His eyes roamed her beautiful face hungrily, and I wished my ex-husband had learned not to wear his heart on his sleeve in my absence.

“I prefer Jose,” she replied.

Mike shook his head. “Jose and I stopped being friends a long time ago.”

She laughed and pushed his chest. “Quitter.”

Mike covered her hand with his before she took it away. Color drained from his face as his heart beat loud enough to drown out everything else, his whole body warm. My heart hammered in her chest, her scar burning, and she stepped back, snatching her hand away. She ran from the bar and Eliot followed, calling her name. Mike stood rooted in his spot until Blip approached.

“Well…?”

“That was her. My heart’s still hammering,” Mike confirmed.

I had died never knowing the haunted look that settled on Mike’s face, the reaction to meeting The One, as punishment for my betrayal. Mike and I had never experienced It, but we’d married anyway. In front of a cathedral, I’d posited my theory that maybe soulmates were made, that maybe some love came softly, and we’d decided it was a good experiment. After two years of phrases that sparked nothing, of well-intentioned but uneventful lovemaking, I went searching again, my husband none the wiser.

Meeting Trevor Davis on a train platform had been much the same for Ginny. There had been no spark when they touched, no hammering of heartbeats in eardrums, no jolt, but his smile was kind and she told herself that maybe it would bloom. She needed it to bloom before her defective heart gave its final weak beat. Like so many others—like me—she couldn’t imagine crossing into the After not knowing that connection. Trevor hadn’t been particularly concerned one way or the other, just attaching himself to her for the ride. He’d done the same to me after a sweaty dance in a bar in which I’d had no being, unaware that I was coming between a dying girl and the man she’d hoped was the love of her life. I was unaware that I’d soon become a dying girl, too.

 “I remember when it happened with me and Evy. I thought I was gonna die on the spot,” Blip replied, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Judging by her reaction, she felt it too.”

This seemed to bring Mike back to the present. Horror etched his face as he looked at the bar’s swinging front door. “Shit! She’s gone! What if I never find her again?”

“You will. Everybody does.”

X

The next night Mike went back to the bar but found no Ginny. The following morning he returned to the train station and frowned when he didn’t see her there either. He returned a second day, half an hour early for his train to see if he’d catch her but she never showed. On the third day, he decided to get creative. The owner of the bar somewhat hesitantly gave him an old flyer with Ginny’s picture on it, a poster with a simple request, and a sleeping bag then returned to the train station.

“I just wanna go on record saying that this is insane,” Blip said as he unrolled Mike’s sleeping bag and sat on it beside his friend who had been there without fail every day for a week. He was making his now daily delivery of a hot meal courtesy of Evelyn.

Mike shrugged, setting his poster aside for a moment to take his eagerly awaited lunch: a loaded baked potato. “I have to find her.”

“I’m sure there are ways less likely to end up on the news than this, Mike.”

“I wouldn’t mind being on the news. Maybe she’ll see me and come back.”

Mike had returned to the sight of their first encounter, the train platform, with a picture of Ginny and a poster with a simple request: “If you see this girl, will you tell her where I am?” A group of girls in school uniforms stopped to gawk at him and he smiled, tried to look as nonthreatening as possible as he thrust out the picture to one of them who passed it along to her friends. “If you see her, tell her I’m here please.”

They nodded as one gave the picture back then boarded their train, still looking at him through the windows. An elderly woman shuffled up, a paper bag in her hand. She stopped to talk to him every day, and he smiled. “Good morning Ms. Lebowitz.”

“Did you find her yet?” she asked.

Mike shook his head. “No, but today might be the day.”

She handed him the bag and opened it, pulling out a hat and comically large mittens then a large sandwich. She stepped closer, bending her already stooped frame to kiss his forehead. “You’re a sweet boy.”

“Thank you,” Mike said with a grin as he unwrapped the sandwich. “This smells so good.”

“You keep on,” the old woman replied as she shuffled away.

Blip shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m part of this.”

“I learned to _waltz_ for your wedding. Shut up,” Mike replied, his mouth full of brisket.

Blip soon left for work, and Mike finished his sandwich just as the reporter approached, a cameraman behind her. She asked, “Are you him?”

“Him who?” Mike asked, wiping his mouth with the sandwich’s wrapper.

“We’ve been getting calls all week about a guy in the train station looking for a girl. You’re him, right?” Mike nodded and she extended her hand. “Amelia Slater, KACL News. Can I interview you?”

“Yeah,” Mike replied with a nod.

The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as Amelia and her crew set up. She produced a small comb for Mike to straighten his hair and beard then sat somewhat dubiously beside him on his sleeping bag. The cameraman gave her the count and she raised her mic to her lips. “I’m Amelia Slater and this is KACL News reporting from the 45th Street Terminal where Mike Lawson has been camping out for a week hoping to find his soulmate. Tell us what’s going on, Mike.”

She pointed the mic at him and Mike cleared his throat, held up Ginny’s picture. “Well I’m Mike, like you said. And I’ve been here for week hoping to find my soulmate. I met her about two weeks ago. Her name is Ginny, and after it happened, she ran away. I haven’t seen her since, and I’m not sure why she took off, but Ginny, if you’re watching, I’d like to talk to you at least one more time. If I could have just five minutes to know something more than your name. Please. And if you know Ginny, please tell her I’m here. I’ll be here all day and tomorrow too.”

X

A few hours later, Eliot plopped on the couch beside Ginny and took the remote from her, changing the channel from Food Network to the news. Ginny rolled her eyes. She, like me, hated the evening news because it was never anything positive. The sight of Mike’s face on the screen made her sit up from her shroud of blankets. Eliot asked, “Isn’t that that guy from the bar?”

“Yeah.” She snatched the remote back, turned up the volume.

“ _Her name is Ginny, and after it happened, she ran away. I haven’t seen her since, and I’m not sure why she took off, but Ginny, if you’re watching, I’d like to talk to you at least one more time. If I could have just five minutes to know something more than your name. Please. And if you know Ginny, please tell her I’m here. I’ll be here all day and tomorrow too.”_

Ginny stared at the screen, her jaw slack. “He’s crazy.”

“He’s your soulmate,” Eliot replied.

Ginny shook her head. “I don’t need a soulmate. I’m dying.”

“Not anymore.”

“You don’t know that. The doctors aren’t even sure what’s wrong with me.”

“Nothing. You’ve got a brand new heart. Well, like new anyway.”

Ginny shook her head again. “What if I die? What if I die and leave him behind?”

“What if you die and the only thing you have to remember is a handshake is some shitty bar?”

“ _Eliot_.”

“ _Ginny_.”

She pushed off the couch, ran her hand through her hair. “I’m gonna haunt you so bad when I die.”

Twenty minutes later, she was taking a train to the 45th street stop. When she got off the train, he was the first person she saw, sitting in front of what had been her boarding spot, talking to a little boy with a brown bag in his hand. Ginny wove through the crowd, edging close to hear them talk.

A woman rubbed the little boy’s head. “Go on.”

“I saw you on tv and I made you a lunch so you wouldn’t be sad anymore,” the little boy said, offering him the bag. “It’s my favorite, apple jam and bananas. And I gave you my last fruit rollup.”

“Your last fruit rollup? That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me!” He smiled and Ginny’s grin widened.  She walked over and sat beside Mike. The little boy’s eyes widened as he pushed his blue-rimmed glasses up the brim of his nose. “Are you Ginny?”

She nodded, smiling at him then at Mike. “Yes I am.”

“You came!” He looked up at his mother, his smile stretched wide despite his missing front teeth. “She came!”

“I see. Let’s go so they can talk, okay?”

“Okay!” He waved, still smiling. “Bye!”

“Bye,” they replied as he walked away, chattering to his mother.

I pulled my knees to my chest, watching them with an intensity once saved for _Criminal Minds_. Ginny spoke first, her voice smaller than I’d thought the loud woman capable. “Hi.”

Mike’s face creased with a smile. “Hi.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A week,” he replied.

“You camped out for a week in this place?”

“Well, the very first time I saw you was here. You dropped this,” he pulled her doodle, caringly folded, from his pocket, “and I tried to give it back but you were in a hurry. Then after we met, I came back hoping you’d come back too.”

“Why does this mean so much to you?” she asked quietly.

“Well, you’re the one. I’ve been waiting my whole life for you,” he answered. “I can’t even… What kind of coward was I to marry Rachel and not wait for you to show up?”

“Rachel?”

“My ex-wife. She died about a year ago. She thought soulmates could be made, but that’s just not how it works. And when she figured that out, she went looking for someone else, left me like we didn’t mean anything.”

Ginny nodded then said, “I got my heart from someone named Rachel.”

“She donated her organs. Maybe you’ve got her heart.”

“Maybe she led us to each other.”

“She does owe me, but I doubt it.”

I rolled my eyes and Ginny smiled. “That would be something wouldn’t it?”

“I think our story’s crazy enough without my dead ex-wife playing Cupid.”

 _You’re welcome, you cranky bastard_ , I thought even as I smiled at him and Ginny shyly meeting each other’s gazes. She asked, “Can I have some of your sandwich?”

He offered the whole thing and Ginny took half, her smile small and intimate. She leaned back against the platform wall and Mike shyly intertwined their ring and pinky fingers between them. This touch reignited their previous warmth, but Ginny didn’t recoil, instead tightening her grip a little.


End file.
